DoBeDo workshop at the RAI Conference on Art, Materiality and Representation

We are happy to hold DoBeDo, Drawing to Converse – Workshop at Drawings Of, Drawings By, and Drawings With…panel at the RAI Conference on Art, Materiality and Representation at SOAS/British Museum in London from 1st to 3rd June 2018.

In Dobedo- workshops all the participants will put aside verbal languages and communicate solely through drawing, to explore the universality, power and limits of collaborative drawing.

This panel considers drawing and other inscriptive practices and their relation to creativity. Drawing, broadly, is considered as a form of knowledge production, leading to questions about the nature of the knowledge produced, how it differs from other forms, and the uses of that knowledge.

Long abstract

Inscribing marks into surfaces remains a relevant form of creative practice in this digital age. Drawings and other inscriptive practices are, however, often dismissed in a variety of ways: relegated to the status of images or objects of study rather than representing an understanding of the world in their own right. The status of drawing and other inscriptive practices in producing alternative forms of understanding remains contested, even in supposedly friendly disciplines such as architecture.

This renewed focus on creative practices within anthropology offers an alternative to art-historical modes of inquiry which, whilst important and useful, do not tell us everything about a drawing, notation, diagram or map, often neglecting the very making of the thing.

This panel is proposed in order to investigate a range of aspects of drawing. More broadly considered as inscriptive practices including diagrams, notations, and other forms of mark-making, drawing remains a crucial component of a number of creative practices from architecture through to fine art. The panels invite accounts from both practitioners and anthropologists, particularly when the practitioners are anthropologists.

It is envisaged that the panel will consist of three sessions:

(1) Drawings Of;

(2) Drawings By; and

(3) Drawings With.

Part 1 will focus on drawings made by the contributors, discussing what they are drawings of: be that their own bodily capacity, studies of material culture, movements or costumes; Part 2 discusses methods and approaches towards the drawings made by others, and how to better understand them. Finally, Part 3 involves the practice of making drawings: live demonstrations and practical workshops.